SSC '04
Reading Chapters Differently
by Rhosymedre
500 Words
Entry for Picture, "The Clock"

Green, red, and blue clockwork arms tick marks of time on the
wall, but can't transpose the symbols -- movement and
mathematics, sterile and relentless -- into life.

*People* breathe life into time, making it not merely a
passing, but a fulfillment.

We also bend time out of its native contours and instead of
heralding it for the awesome natural gifts it holds out to
us, we collar it and use it as a counter of the mundane and
small and restrictive. Then we harness *ourselves* to it,
like we were oxen and demand it crack its whip over us and
the chapters of our days.

Animals don't check Movado watches, curse digital timepieces
when the power goes out, measure nanoseconds via atomic
chronometers, compulsively listen to commuter radio
announcing the time every two minutes, or steal glances at
the schoolhouse or workplace wall clock. We do.

Foolish, rigid human frippery!

Take my predicament of the moment. The clock hanging on the
wall of Henderson Associates reads 1:07:29 from this angle.
If I shifted to my right a few feet, it would change
slightly to 1:07:30. A few feet the other direction and --
you guessed it: 1:07:28. Einstein's theory of relativity
proven before my eyes? Wellllll... he did say time is a matter
of perspective or, ahem, *relative*. So, can I claim I wasn't
late for my job interview because relatively speaking I
arrived close to the crucial hour? Um. No.

My good reason for not entering the office before the minute
hand chinked to the "12 o'clock high" position and the hour
hand jogged precisely into place over the "1" is immaterial
to "Ridgeway" Henderson. Nothing beyond lateness matters.

As a schoolgirl, being tardy might have earned me detention.
Or a slapped palm or a paddling from the principal and then a
bottom reheating from Mom at home. But I'm a single adult,
and my consequences are no longer those of the naughty little
girl. My punishment will be economic, not corporal. Not
having been a punctilious slave to the beastly timepiece
will cost me a regular paycheck for an indefinite period.

Frankly, I'd rather Mr. Henderson thwacked my tender,
panties-down rear with that hefty straight-edge than tear up
my application!

Time waits for no man, they say... or woman. Actually, Time
is indifferent to us. Sometimes we fancy we have harnessed
Time for our own purposes, that we have mastered It, not It
us. But Time is simply the mysterious force, element, or wave
that holds us universe dwellers in its hermetic seal. And
Time doesn't give a damn about our puny efforts to divide and
conquer it. It just keeps barreling along and "laughs" when
we don't see the forest for the trees -- er, when we don't
celebrate the higher magnificence of Time's embrace, when we
instead parse Grand Time into picayune time and fanatically
genuflect to the clock on the wall.

To my chagrin, time sticklers like Mr. Henderson can't share
the cosmic joke.


___________________________________

Note: clock numerals are also called "chapters."